Reflection Blog

Andreas Cantu
Mr. Roddy
IHSS
14 May 2020
The End 
Over the course of these past two months I learned how difficult effective civic engagement is. There are so many different ways of engaging that the word civic engagements can mean so many different things. Without a solid plan and plenty of supporters your engagement can go completely unnoticed, it became quite apparent early on that my contribution to the end of gentrification would mean little to nothing in the big picture. I came to the conclusion that that's the issue with civic engagement, it requires so much to get so little. 
My biggest challenge when coming up with my engagement plan had to be, how on earth I was going to spread awareness. There are so many different ways to get your message out to the public, that settling on one would be quite the struggle. I ended up with the decision to hang up flyers all around my neighborhood with information on gentrification and where they can find more. That went really well for me, because it required me going outside and exploring more of my neighborhood. During this time of quarantine I spend a lot of time indoors, so getting the chance to be outside and explore was wonderful. 
After this whole experience I think that civic engagement is way more important in small towns and cities than cities such as Houston. The main issue is that their are just way to many people spread out over a massive plot of land. It makes civic engagement such as mine close to useless. Now I am not just saying this to denounce the challenge project, however I think there needs to be some changes with the project that would aim towards really making a difference. Now back to what I was saying, in small towns and cities civic engagement is used and relied on so much more. In some cases that's the only way that those civilizations can properly function. 
Overall I would say that, although there were moments of stress that this project produced I still enjoyed learning more about my topic and I don't regret any moment of it. 

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